Stupid Nurse Trick... Don't try this at home... or work!

[TXRN02]

Ok, here's one for the books. I was attacked by my stethoscope yesterday. It flew into my eye HARD. Jammed my hard contact into it. I now have a corneal abrasion & have to be off work at least 3 days, and can't wear my contacts for at least a week!

A friend just brought me goggles, as a joke!

Has anyone else pulled one quite so brilliant?

[Keshet]

Speaking of clumsy! I was once prepping a lady for a cardiac cath, and while shaving her, got the bed a little wet. So, she got up to go to the bathroom, while I went to get new bedding. I came back in the room (it was a double, separated by a curtain).

The patient had just come out of the bathroom, and I was in a hurry so I could change her bed and get her back in it. There was a visitor chair on the other side of the curtain that I didn't see. As I was walking by it, one of my feet got caught between the chairlegs. I had an armload full of bedding, and I didn't see it coming, so I wasn't quick enough to even attempt to break my fall. I landed first on my knees on a hard concrete floor, as my face slammed into the side of the bed.

The other nurses came running in, thinking from the loud crashing noises that the patient had fallen. The other nurses saw the patient standing there pointing at me on the floor, and they all just laughed and walked away.

Meanwhile I was still writhing on the floor in real pain! No real injury, but I got a beauty of a black eye, and it took a few weeks before my knees stopped hurting!

[Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN]

I was on assignment (travel nursing) and was leaving my assignment housing at 0430 to go to work.

I was thinking about the day ahead, not paying attention to what I was doing. Well, the housing on my previous two assignments had been first floor apts. This apt was a "garden level" -half a flight of stairs up.

Well, I walked straight out the front door and fell down the stairs.

I was so dazed from the fall, I was unable to get up for about ten mins. I got my clean white pants and shoes filthy.

I had large lumps, bruises, and scrapes all over my body for about two weeks.

Luckily, I'd been leaving the house early the morning I fell. I was able to rest for a bit, clean myself up and made it to work on time.

[grace90, LPN, LVN]

I haven't done it myself, but I've seen someone grab a stethoscope and not notice an ear piece was missing and slap it into their ear hard and fast enough to draw blood. Ouch!

I pushed the earpieces into my ears real hard and quick once, the metal tubing went through the plastic earpiece and into my ear and perforated my eardrum. If that wasn't bad enough, I blew it off and waited 2 weeks to have it looked at, so a nice infection had time to sprout. :smilecoffeecup:

[perfectbluebuildings, BSN, RN]

Be careful that you sit right on the middle of the seat on those rolling chairs at the nurses' station; if you sit more to the side the chair may tip quite quickly and throw you onto the floor (ouch.)

And if you're short, it's a better idea to adjust the IV pole's height than try to reach the hook on your own... you might fall down into bed with the patient. Or almost knock down or pull out their IV. Not a good idea...

[Gragorin]

I pulled this one a couple of weeks ago. While I'm in school working on my BSN, I'm working at a Unit Clerk in a Med/Surg Ward. Anywho, the gist of the story is that the floor is of a very high acuity so the call lights are very busy as are the phones. I had just gotten off a call with a patient (Dementia and called every 5 minutes) when the phone rang so I reached over to the phone to answer it and somehow, don't ask me how as the nurses who saw it don't realize how I did it, bobbled the pickup of the handset. As I bobbled it I tried to recover it but instead of doing that I gave it a bit o' velocity instead. Velocity which was aimed directly at my head. Did I mention that this happened really fast? Or that I didn't even have time to duck and instead watched the pointy end of the handset catch me square across the bridge of my nose so hard that it bounced back onto the desk? Man, that really sucked after my eyes quit watering and the several nurses around me stopped laughing...

[talaxandra]

Even though I know not to do this - I was running with the crash cart and half-tripped on the power cord, which pulled the defibrillator toward me. Hard to resus a patient when the staff are concussed.

And last week I popped in to fix an IV pump. As I turned 'round I tripped on the (bizarrely long and on the floor) IV tubing, poulling out an insulin infusion from the vein of a long-term diatetic IVDU. I was that popular..

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

On our code cart we had maintenance rig up a bracket to catch the cord in case someone tried running before unplugging. It kept the d/fib from falling and provided enough drag to remind us to unplug.

Also anyone notice the carts aren't aerodynamicly stable. Kind of like a minivan in a windstorm.

[RNAnnjeh, MSN, CNS]

Then there was the time one of my colleagues picked up an ammonia packet (not knowing what it was) and asked "what's this?" as she popped it! I thought she was going to :barf01: right then and there! Tee hee.

[muffie, RN]

i was having a very busy day and was more concerned with getting everything done than opening my eyes and seeing the surroundings.so as i entered the still wet floor of the clean utility room [with the caution wet floor sign right outside] 3 steps in and gets who does the complete splits sideways. me !. i screamed in shock more than pain and didn't know how to extricate myself. however, off to emerg to check things out. bruised self-esteem healed with some nsaids. now i truly respect the wet floor signs. i hope this gymnastic feat doesn't come back to haunt me when i am 60 and still floor nursing full time. i spent the rest of the day laughing as i sheepishly recanted to all how i lost my virginity in the clean utility room !

[TDub, MSN, EdD]

Let's see, I have performed the following stupid nurse's tricks:

* drank an entire pot of caffienated coffee while studying and spent the day on the toilet groaning instead of studying.

*the next weekend decided to be 'one of the cool kids' while studying and attempted to light a cigarette (I have never smoked) off the gas stove. Burned all my bangs off plus singed my eyebrows.

*chopped chiles for chili con carne and then went to work. Rubbed my eye during report and screamed bloody murder, scaring the bejebus out of the patients.

*not recognized a patient when she took her wig off and demanded to know what she had done with Mrs. Robinson!?!

*when preparing my first deceased patient for the morgue, noticed my friend's hand reaching under the curtain to seize my ankle and stomped on his hand, the devil.

* called into work and when my friend answered the phone I felt the need to tell her I'd be late because I was having fantastico sex with my new hot hunky boyfriend, the Englishman. In detail. In great detail. I was on the speakerphone.

*accidently broke my dead patient's wrist while trying to wrestle her into the outfit in which the family wanted her taken to the funeral home.

*again, while dressing a dead patient, put her Capri pants on backwards. No one noticed.

*slipped and fell into the hydrotub when attempting to bathe a patient. She thought it wildly funny.

*leaned across a quadriplegic patient to fluff pillows and almost suffocated the poor guy with my own "pillows". He said, "What a way to go!"

*managed to destroy 2 additional patient's narcs when dcing my own patient's meds. Didn't look at the names on the blisterpaks. Idiot.

*ripped open my own scrub top catching it on a metal projection on the bed. Thank goodness I was wearing a nice bra.

*got caught by the patient looking down the scrub top of my really good-looking male student and admiring his perfect chest. Yum. :uhoh21:

*bobbled a (thankfully clean) needle and had it land straight up, quivering in my foot. Do not wear suede Birkenstocks to work, no matter how cool they look.

*asked a patient I ran into on the street how her baby was. "Oh, uh, he died." was the reply. Kill me now...

*grabbed my friend the doc's bottom and honked him only.... It wasn't my good friend, it was a new doc; one of the most handsome men I'd ever seen. For some reason he avoided me the rest of his rotation. Sigh.

*tripped over the cord and unplugged the iron lung. Yes, I am that old.

*fainted in the midst of a delivery. Twice.

*not showed up for work when I was on the schedule and showed up when I wasn't all due to mistranscribing my own schedule to my calendar.

Last but not least,

*three days ago, a colleague was playing with a SIX AND A HALF INCH LONG remote control tarantula and made it crawl towards me: Discovery Remote Control Mexican Redknee Tarantula

I saw it, leapt backwards and screamed "F^cksocks!" at the top of my lungs. I am one of the Clinical Instructors of Nursing. Classy.

There are more, but they are too embarrassing to recount.

[santhony44, MSN, RN, NP]

I had a patient once who was quite old (or I thought so at the time) and very wrinkled. I knew she had a grown son and daughter but had not seen them. I walked into her room and she had this nice looking young man in her room.

I said "Oh, is this your son?"

She looked at me with the Evil Eye and said "No, this is my boyfriend!" :uhoh21:

I have never, ever made a relationship assumption since. At least, not out loud!

[ChuckieRN]

Hi Everyone,

My dogs are looking at me with their heads cocked to the side right now due to my howling out loud!! All of these stories are a hoot!